Unlikely as it may seem, with the brutal exchange of fire inflicted on long suffering civilians from both sides of Ukraine’s border with Russia, the two warring parties appear anxious to settle. Ukraine’s supporters abroad appear fair weather friends, whether in Europe, where the populist wave is isolationist in spirit as economies drift into recession, or in the United States where the president rarely knows whether he is coming or going (and he is probably going), with an election months away. Meanwhile British politicians, on the margin, wail about the possibility of Mr Trump returning to office, even though, if he is as ineffective as before, he is unlikely to overrule the deep state and its own priorities without a battle royal that will consume every ounce of energy the United States possesses.

   The military front is at stalemate and when it moves on the margin more young lives are chewed up in gunfire. On the Russian side, they are of course perfectly capable of running a war economy at maximum strength for the long term. It has a long track record of doing so. But at what cost? Whereas Ukraine certainly cannot do so; it will have to rely on foreign aid.

     Russia is under immense strain. It has a severe shortage of manpower which drives inflation. The economy has been turned upside down by the war effort despite the country’s ability to evade Western oil sanctions. India, hitherto a major buyer, will not now pay anything but rupees or yuan for Russian oil and the Russians don’t want foreign currencies that are not of immediate use. The government has confessed that it cannot control rising inflation except by resorting to old fashioned central command methods. But does Russia really contemplate reversing into the Stalinist planned economy? There is no consensus for that. And the population’s tolerance of the death toll is severely limited. The idea that Levada opinion polling is to be believed is farcical given what might happen to you if you tell the truth. Putin desperately needs re-election and even a fraudulent win at the polls to him seems fragile; otherwise why consign his main political prisoner, Naval’ny, to the Arctic Circle? Why have unhappy families visit the president at Novoe Ogaryovo?

  It is striking that on his visit to the Vishnevskii Central Military Clinical Hospital on New Year’s Day Putin had a curious response when asked by one of the patients how he felt about “Western countries” helping “the enemy” (Ukraine). “The point is”, Putin responded, “not that they are helping our enemy. They are our enemy…Ukraine itself is not our enemy whereas those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve, as they say, a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield, are mainly in the West…there are the élites who think the existence of Russia (at least in its current state and size) is not acceptable. They want its disintegration…The problem is not with Ukraine, but with those who are trying to destroy Russia using Ukraine. That is the problem.”

Russia wants to end the conflict, he claims, “as quickly as possible, but only on our terms.” As does everyone, of course. But what Putin is saying is in total contradiction to the declared, hysterical aims of the war, supposedly to eradicate “fascists” from Ukraine. Now, it seems, they must no longer exist or he does not actually mind them so much. He needs instead to build a barrier against the West. For that he would need Ukrainian co-operation. So if the fascists are now gone, what objections would he have to forgetting about Russia’s new provinces to the east? What are to be the terms of peace? And who exactly will mediate?